


Ship of Fools

by AndyAO3



Series: One for All [2]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Biotic Ryder, Canon Divergence, Custom Ryder Twins, Humor, M/M, Robots and AI, Sad Robots, Slow Burn, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-24 17:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10746132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyAO3/pseuds/AndyAO3
Summary: The Pathfinder is sent to hunt down a rogue AI and forgets along the way that he was supposed to kill it. Then he decides he doesn't want to. Oops.





	1. i talk to the rain

**Author's Note:**

> WOO alright this is my contribution to the pile of "there isn't enough MLM Ryder out there" while also being a whole lot of thinky thoughts about robots and disability set in the Mass Effect: Andromeda part of the Mass Effect universe. My Ryder is a custom Ryder (thanks a lot, tags, for not actually having that as a tag yet OR having a plain ol' Male Ryder tag) who is a disabled biotic. He's more renegade than paragon and he's hella smart in his own right, so this is more hard scifi than soft.
> 
> Notes for those who aren't sure whether or not they'll want to skip this one:  
> -It will have a happy ending.  
> -It will be long-ish.  
> -It's basically a story about a boy and a robot.  
> -It's tagged as "canon divergence" because A. the sister is awake early and actually a part of the plot in some places, and B. the OMC is written like a DLC character with his own recruitment mission and loyalty mission and everything, but he _does not exist ingame_.  
>  -There probably won't be porn. And if there is, it'll be much, _much_ later on.  
>  -This whole story is going to be very thinky and character-driven. Here there be dialogue.
> 
> If any of that sounds like your jam, then yay! You might like this. If any of it sounds like something you're really not all that into, then you might wanna avoid this one and go read Imperfectkreis's work instead, she tends to get right to the robotfucking whereas I noodle around in the thinky bits of the story for ages.
> 
> With that said, hope you enjoy!

The Nexus was not, in fact, cold. With power restored, it was kept at a constant, regulated, comfortable temperature at all times. Ryder was sure that if he were to run a scan on the room, it would read as unchanged from the rest of the station.

None of this stopped Tann's office (with the soulless decorations of Pathfinder Hall flanking it, and the aggressively perky aide at the door) from sending a chill down Ryder's spine.

"You asked to see me?" Ryder called out as he ascended the curving path to Tann's desk; he never liked to give the Director the impression that he was affected by all the pomp and circumstance of Pathfinder Hall, knowing full well how deliberate it was on Tann's part. The (acting) Director liked to feel important and make himself seem like something other than an incompetent prick, which Ryder supposed was probably part of the reason why no one had fired the bastard yet. Even without gravitas of his own, Tann was a master of making use of others' achievements to make himself look good.

But there was also a kind of power inherent to being able to make men like Tann feel small, and Ryder made sure to demonstrate that every chance he got. Still, Tann was all about appearances, and he managed to school his voice so he didn't sound nearly as ruffled as he looked by the time Ryder came into view. "Your puctuality is appreciated as always, Pathfinder," Tann said dryly.

Ryder had to smirk at that; they both knew he hadn't been punctual at all. "You know how much I value these little chats of ours, Director," he replied. As in, not at all.

Tann smiled a thin, mirthless sort of smile. "I'll try not to take up too much of your valuable time, don't worry. I'm certain there are other things that need doing that are far more important than what the Initiative would have you do."

"What, you mean the myriad ways an entire sector needs to get its shit together before people can have some peace and fucking quiet? Nonsense. Making you look good is way more of a priority to me, I assure you."

"Now, Ryder. You and I both know how important it is that the Initiative maintain appearances." The Director took on the tone of an adult scolding a small child. "But enough about that. You _are_ here for a reason. One of particular interest to you, if I'm not mistaken."

Ryder's smirk faded somewhat as he glanced up sharply at Tann. "Oh?" Usually that kind of phrasing meant it was something that would make Ryder look bad, and Tann thought throwing the Pathfinder a bone would earn him some favor over it. "Do tell."

Assured of his importance, Tann puffed up like a posturing bird of paradise and stepped out from behind his desk. At his full height, he was taller than Ryder by a large margin; most Salarians were, especially since Ryder wasn't a particularly tall human. But Tann was a remarkably tall - if reedy - example of his own species, and he was quick to use that to his advantage. Long fingers tapped against the desk, swiped a series of commands on a tablet, fidgeted idly as Tann did his damnedest to waste as much of the Pathfinder's time as possible.

Ryder wanted to tell him to get on with it, but to show his annoyance would be to tip his own hand.

"There has been a series of raids on our supply lines," Tann said. "Unusually thorough for exiles, but too few casualties for Kett or Roekaar."

"How many is too few?" Ryder asked, frowning.

"None." Tann adjusted his sleeves delicately. "Ships are left only partially disabled, and the crew always comes out of it alive and mostly unharmed. The worst injury sustained is a minor concussion that was the result of someone smacking into a bulkhead. It's all very irregular."

"Got a visual on the people doing it? Scans?"

"Records are usually wiped on the afflicted ships, but eyewitness accounts usually say the same thing: all of the races involved are Nexus races." Tann looked out the window as if bored. "But that isn't the most peculiar thing about this. Far from it, actually."

Ryder squinted suspiciously. "What's going on, Tann?"

"Well, to put it simply, they're only taking surplus. To a ridiculously well-calculated degree, in fact. Somehow, somewhere, they're figuring out how much we actually need in terms of supplies, and skimming only what they can get off of the very top. And we aren't just talking about food here, Ryder-- this is everything. We're seeing such examples as a specific medication in a shipment of general supplies being left alone on its way to Eos for a rare disease that required a medical exemption to even get here, along with the equipment required to monitor that disease. We're losing nothing that we actually need, and that need is calculated to a man. And that doesn't include the things we've seen predicted and accounted for that even we hadn't been able to anticipate."

"So we've got a Robin Hood on our hands, big deal." Ryder shrugged. "Your point?"

Tann pursed his lips. "These are not the sort of predictive analytics that any old computer program can do, Ryder," he said. "After going over the data, it's clear that what we're dealing with isn't just a bunch of exiles, but something far more dangerous."

It hit Ryder all at once, and he felt the blood drain from his face. "You think they have an AI," he said. "Like SAM."

"It's entirely possible. The likelihood that this is one of our lost arks is next to nothing, given the circumstances; none of our arks except for the Hyperion would know our systems this well, or have this much access to our databases. Only exiles have that sort of insider knowledge. Which means that somehow, these outlaws have found a way to copy or replicate the base code of a SAM unit."

To say that changed things would be an understatement. Working with an AI was playing with fire in most cases; half the reason Ryder had saved that old Angaran AI was because he didn't want her to get killed or misused, and he knew that SAM would keep her safe and help her get through the adjustment period of finally being exposed to people again. The exiles, as innocent as their intentions might be, were putting both themselves and the rest of the sector in grave danger if they were working with an untested AI that they had no idea how to treat well.

After all, the Milky Way was the place where the question "does this unit have a soul" had been met with a galaxy-wide ban on the very existence of AI, as well as a war that the Quarians had never quite managed to recover from. And that was something Ryder wanted to prevent from ever happening again, in any way he could.

"I guess I'm looking into this then, huh," he said with a sigh, offering Tann an insincere smile.

Tann nodded once, firm and decisive. "I'm glad we can agree that this is something worth investigating," he answered. "I'll have all relevant data sent to SAM for analysis. Oh, one more thing?"

"Yeah?"

"Please try to exercise a little discretion this time. We don't need everyone knowing that we've allowed something like this to continue."

The Pathfinder rolled his eyes as he left the way he came, barely bothering to give the aide a wave as he left. No need to worry about that; rogue AI didn't exactly make for good water cooler talk. Besides, Ryder wasn't one to go blabbing about things he wanted to keep safe.

Not that he'd say that to Tann, because frankly? Tann was an ass.

\---

Of course, with his sister awake, discretion was the last thing he'd be striving for.

"You and your robots," his sister said with a sigh, shaking her head and smiling. She was out of her coma, thanks in no small part to him pulling some strings to get a handful of Angaran doctors involved after what he'd done for Voeld. Tired as she was, she hadn't quite been out long enough for her muscles to atrophy, so she was sitting up and talking just fine. Even holding her cup of coffee on her own. No drooping, no stutter, no seizures or odd sensitivities to light or sound.

Ryder was pleased, even if it meant enduring her teasing. "It's a big deal, Cass," he said. "Even if it isn't helpful in the strictest sense, it's still better to be nice to it and make sure it isn't trying to kill us in the long run, right? Like, hey, remember that time we helped you out and didn't shoot at you at all? That was good, right? Truce?" He ducked his head. "At least that's what I'm hoping for."

"No," she countered, "you're hoping for a friend."

He _hmph_ ed. "What's your point?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong--" here, she brought her mug up to take a dainty sip, "--I'm not stopping you. I just think it's hilarious."

"Fuck you," he grumbled.

"Teddy and his robot fetish," she teased. "I'm amazed you didn't go after SAM."

"No. Fuck that. Too creepy. SAM's like family." A pause, then he added as an aside, "--no offense, SAM."

[None taken, Theodore,] the AI told him.

"See? That's what I mean." Ryder flung his hands up in the air. " _Mom_ called me Theodore. And I'm pretty sure the voice dad used is just a pitchbent version of mom's."

"I suppose you have a point," Cassandra sighed, her tone implying that she'd known that all along and was just trying to rile him. She was like that. Said it was good for him. It usually was. "So I guess this means you'll be putting off Havarl?"

"Kinda have to. I mean, priorities and all. The Angara can hold out now that Voeld's more stabilized, and the whole Pathfinder thing means that I've gotta put Initiative shit first."

"Isn't Havarl a jungle world?" she asked.

"--yeeaahh, that and Havarl's a jungle world," Ryder admitted. "Look, I still have to visit it at some point. I'm the one with the magic fingers for finding Remnant sweet spots. It's just not a tactical necessity right now."

"Could earn us bonus points politically though." After a moment she added, "I could go."

Ryder balked at that. "You? Now? No. You're recovering."

"I'm _recovered_ ," she corrected. "Besides, as we've stated, it's a jungle world. Practically a resort."

"Jungles have tigers," Ryder said. "And river crocodiles. And poison dart frogs."

"Are you implying that I can't handle myself, Teddy?"

"I--" He cringed. "No."

"Oh? It sounded like you were." A sweet smile curved her lips. "If you're worried, you could send your Angara - what was his name, Jaal? - along to accompany me. In the interest of diplomacy between the Angara and the Initiative, of course."

For almost a minute, all Ryder could do was stare at his sister as he realized that had probably been her plan from the start. "Holy _shit_ you're good."

"I try," she said, not an ounce of humility in her. Ryder decided he didn't want to know what she intended to do with Jaal. "You go hunt down this rogue robot of yours--"

"AI," he cut in automatically.

"--and I'll handle whatever it is that needs to be dealt with on Havarl." She softened a little, leaning forward to pet his cheek with the hand not holding her coffee. "Don't worry," she assured. "I'll have SAM with me too."

Ryder leaned into the touch and closed his eyes, letting the quiet drag on and ignoring the din of the Hyperion medbay that surrounded them. He'd missed her, and a part of him was tempted to ask her to come with him on the Tempest. But another part knew that the Tempest was the flagship that flew into danger first, leading the way through the storms with her Pathfinder at the helm to guide her, and his sister didn't need to be exposed to that danger.

But no force in the universe would keep her grounded long, either. If he tried to coerce her into staying, she'd be that much more determined to leave. A simple diplomatic mission to find a few missing scientists - with Jaal and SAM to protect her in case anything did go wrong - would be more than enough to keep her occupied while also being far less dangerous than hunting down exiles with an illegitimate AI. And if something did go wrong, she was strong and smart and brave enough to tackle anything a sleepy ol' jungle world could throw at her.

"Look, just," he sighed, took her hand by the wrist, pressed his face into her palm like a touch-starved kitten; she set her mug down to hold his face in both her hands. "Talk to Harry about getting your SAM implant connection upgraded to something more like a Pathfinder's, okay? It should give you the direct neural connection that'll allow for Remnant interfacing when I'm not there. And if it doesn't--"

She cut him off with a laugh and pulled him into a hug; it took him a few seconds to relax into it and wind his arms around her in turn. "I'll be fine, Ted."

He let out a shaky breath. "Right," he agreed, "okay."

 


	2. prelude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nuhhhhh I did not sleep well last night, but I told someone I'd post on Saturday and so I'm going to post on Saturday, damn it. Next post will be on Wednesday if I can manage it. 
> 
> This is probably one of my most ambitious fics yet. Two chapters posted and we haven't even met our Player 2 character yet. But don't worry, we will. Ohhhh we will.

"It could be another Pathfinder," Cora said.

Ryder let go of a long, tired sigh. Debriefings were less a tactical meeting where they bumped their heads together and more a cat herding session where the Tempest crew was concerned. "None of the evidence suggests that this is a prelude to finding another Pathfinder _or_ another ark."

"Even if it isn't, it could still net us a new Pathfinder by giving us a second dedicated SAM unit," she shot back.

"And who do you propose might fill this role?" Lexi asked pointedly.

Cora fell into parade rest and tipped her chin up, trying her best to keep her expression neutral. "If it comes down to it, I volunteer," she said.

Liam snorted. "Yeah, 'cos that's not a major political incident waiting to happen," he muttered. "Two human Pathfinders? Ha."

"Not that you're not qualified, at least on paper," Vetra was quick to say. "But from what Teddy's been doing with no training at all, people are way less likely to see training as a factor if the attitude ain't there to back it up."

"Are you saying I have an attitude problem?" Cora's voice lowered dangerously; the inside of Ryder's nose began to prickle with ozone, hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

Vetra's face moved in the Turian equivalent of a smile. "I'm saying you don't have the _right_ attitude. By-the-book doesn't count for shit out here. Teddy flies by the seat of his pants, but he gets things done."

Ryder cleared his throat. " _A-hem_. Ladies." He gave Cora a stern look. "It's not another Pathfinder. And if it's another SAM, it's probably not looking to cooperate with us if it hasn't reached out already. I doubt a bunch of outlaws would know enough to be able to shackle an AI, so if it's out there, it's got autonomy enough to make decisions. So it's either decided to side with them, or been coerced to side with them."

"So we find this thing, snatch its data, and kill it," Drack rumbled. "Everybody wins."

Except the AI. But then, no one thought about that kind of thing, did they? "We'll figure out what to do with it once we get there," Ryder said. "SAM? What've we got to work with?"

[The data I was given indicates that this particular band of exiles prefers to stay on the move rather than call any one place a base of operations at any given time. Every few weeks there is a sharp drop-off in their activities, at which point there is a narrow window where they can be tracked down. However, by the time Initiative forces arrive at their last known coordinates, they've already left.]

"Why's it take so long to get to them?" Peebee wondered.

[Paperwork,] SAM answered. [The environments these exiles chose as temporary bases tend towards severity, necessitating precautions. Precautions mean requisitions of safety equipment, which in turn leads to delays while waiting for approval. This gives the exiles more than enough time to move to a new location.]

Liam whistled. "A briar patch," he said. "How are they not dead, though? I mean, bad environments are bad for a reason, yeah?"

[None of the environments thus far have been extreme enough to kill outright, as long as one wears proper safety equipment. Thus it stands to reason that these exiles have said equipment, and are familiar with exercising the necessary precautions.]

"Sounds like a job for Krogan-- oh, wait." Drack's voice dripped sarcasm. "I bet Tann's kicking himself over that now, huh."

[While a Krogan would be able to withstand some of these extremes, others would still be deadly without equipment or preparation, which leads me to the conclusion that the exiles have already thought of that eventuality.]

Ryder nodded slowly. "What I wanna know is, why's it suddenly viable to send in a team? I mean sure, we don't have the same kinds of delays as an APEX strike team, but still."

[The exiles' current location was confirmed two weeks ago: the planet Korvath in the Pfeiffer system.] SAM said. [This is well past the window in which they can usually be confronted, yet they have not moved.]

"So they're stuck," Ryder guessed. "And Tann didn't tell us before now because he was either waiting for the other shoe to drop or just hoping it would all blow over."

Cora folded her arms. "Or they're preparing an offensive."

"Or they're dead," Vetra said blandly. "On the plus side, if they're dead, we can take their stuff. Only fair since it's stolen Initiative property to begin with."

"Right, because the Initiative's all about looting," Cora drawled.

Peebee raised her hand. "Technically we kind of are with the whole Remnant vault thing," she noted. "Not to mention whenever we scavenge any kind of tech off of the Kett or the Remnant or, hell, even the ancient Angara. And even before that, back in the Milky Way when we found the mass relays? Also looting."

The look Cora gave her would have intimidated a less talented biotic than Peebee; as it was, all Peebee did was smile sweetly in return, because she was nothing if not a little shit.

In the end, they set off for Korvath without too much fuss, and as most of the rest of Ryder's crew slept, he stayed up looking over what scans they had of the planet's conditions so he could know what they were up against and plan accordingly. As missions went, he had a feeling this would be a tough one.

Not that he'd mind being wrong for once.

\---

Korvath was a desert planet, with a thin atmosphere and frequent electrically charged sandstorms ravaging its surface. Indications were that at one point it'd had a much thicker atmosphere, with fairly rich and nuanced biomes to go with it since it was in the local star's habitable zone, but something had happened to burn all that atmosphere off. One result of this was a massive gulf between light side and dark side temperatures; another was an almost complete lack of protection from the ravages of the overactive sun. It was not a happy planet.

Peebee's suggestion as to the cause was Remnant. Cora's idea, meanwhile, was bombardment. Suvi thought it might be the sun itself, rife with solar flares that assaulted the Tempest's shielding with radiation, heat, and electromagnetism. Kallo's face pinched up as he made a noise and said he hoped it wasn't Scourge. And over the intercom, Gil groaned and said "I hope you lot aren't planning to actually _land_ on this miserable rock."

The ensuing silence from all those gathered on the bridge was his answer; minutes later, after an unusually smooth atmospheric entry, the Tempest made landfall on Korvath and promtly sank eight feet into the sand when her landing gear touched down.

"Well," Kallo huffed, "that's always a promising way to start things."

"Peebee, Vetra, you're with me," Ryder declared. He ignored Cora's protest as he pulled on his helmet. "And bring some proper hardsuits this time, seriously. SAM, what's the ETA on the next storm?"

[The next storm will be passing over this area in approximately two hours and thirty seven minutes,] SAM told them all. [However, interference due to solar flare activity is making it difficult to say whether the exiles can be found before the storm reaches the ship's location. I have only been able to narrow it down to an area of twenty square kilometres.]

"What happens when the storm hits?"

[It is likely that electromagnetic interference will disrupt communications for the duration,] SAM replied.

"So, keep scanners pinging on the Nomad, find shelter before the storm hits, expect radio silence when it does," Ryder summarized. "Fun times."

[Your definition of 'fun' contradicts all that I have on file, Theodore.] A pause, and SAM added privately: [Your sister would like for me to tell you 'good luck'.]

Ryder smiled to himself, finishing up the last clasps of his hardsuit before turning on his heel to head down to the cargo bay. "Alright then. Autobots, roll out."

(Liam was the only one who laughed.)

It was a good thing the Initiative was a joint venture, otherwise Vetra may not have fit in the Nomad; she and Peebee took to the passenger seats while Ryder sat in the middle, seat pushed forward and up as far as it'd go so he could reach the controls as per usual. Then the cargo bay opened up and the Nomad shot out from the belly of the ship in a burst of jet-propelled inertia that knocked them all back in their seats, taking them out into the deserts of the currently-dark side of Korvath.

There was so much sand. Sand, sand, and more sand. Dark and glittering under the Nomad's headlights, kicked up in a cloud behind them. With nothing to do but stare at the scanner and drive in circles over the dunes looking for his destination - and only half-listening to the girls' conversation going on to either side of him - Ryder's brain was getting a lot of time to work itself in anxious little spirals of thought, endless staircases to nowhere inside his head. What was the sand made of? What was underneath it? What was the composition of the bedrock?

Inevitably though, his thoughts turned towards the AI they were tailing. He tried to imagine what sort of shell it was housed in. Cobbled-together server towers networked in a wild mesh of wiring? A single solid, central unit? That would get pretty damn hard to move and take with them, wouldn't it? What if it was hidden, and they were connected to it via QEC? Wouldn't that mean they had a home base after all?

Or maybe it was housed on a ship. Some stolen, retrofitted, or otherwise "lost" cruiser-- something advanced, potentially unlisted in the official logs of the Nexus. It'd explain why Tann wanted to keep things quiet, but at the same time, it was hard to imagine such a ship staying hidden from everyone in the Initiative who might've seen it and then trying to explain it away if they did. Short of constructing them in secret in a seperate facility - something that would have been logistically difficult at best given the nature of the Initiative, and wouldn't have had time to get finished, let alone be stolen since their arrival - Ryder couldn't see how that would be possible.

A _blip_ appeared on his scanners, drawing him out of his thoughts. "Hello," he mumbled. "Got something."

"Mmhuh?" Peebee stretched and yawned in her seat. She'd fallen asleep after a half hour of rolling over the dunes. "Nnf. C'mon, Teddy, five more minutes."

"Looks like a rock formation," Vetra said, leaning forward to peer over Ryder's shoulder. "Volcanic. Granite, basalt, obsidian..."

Ryder threw the gearshift into four wheel drive, traction and a smooth ride giving way to speed; he hooked the Nomad into a sharp left turn to follow the blip and gripped the controls tightly to keep it from fishtailing on the sand. "And a dead volcano means lava tunnels, " he told them. "Helluva place to hide, right? Doesn't explain the atmosphere thinning out though. Usually mountains spewing shit into the air makes it thicker, not thinner."

"More fuel for the Remnant theory?" a sleepy Peebee suggested. She seemed annoyed that her helmet was keeping her from rubbing at her eyes properly, but this was hardly the time to take it off.

Ryder nodded. "That or Scourge. I've seen it disrupt a planet's magnetic field and burn up the atmosphere before, even causing some freaky seismic activity in the process."

Vetra did a double-take. "Not that I don't believe you, but-- you've _seen_ it? When?"

"Habitat 7," he said grimly, toeing the clutch and kicking it back into six wheel drive to crest a hill. "Our 'New Earth'."

"Ah." Behind the helmet, he could imagine Vetra blinking. "Well, shit."

 


	3. black sword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'know what I hate? Allergies. It's not a bad as Houston but it's still spring and spring is still awful. Also, a bug that's as long as the end of my thumb got in. My cat's having a blast with that one. 
> 
> Meet-cutes are boring. What about meet-shoots? No, no one gets shot, don't, don't come after me please, I'm kidding. Kidding! Don't hurt me. o3o;;

Dunes gave way to a rocky outcropping. Almost literally, as one moment Ryder was ramping off a dune and next came a brief, weightless instant of panic as the sand ended and put their backs at a sheer, black cliff that gleamed with a diffuse reflection of the headlights' glow. Following the cliff then got them to a cave about three kilometres of driving later, only just wide enough for the Nomad to drive through. Somewhere along the way their comms went out, but Ryder paid it little mind.

However, this part of the journey only went on for so long before they had to get out and proceed on foot, which was a development that Peebee did not appreciate in the slightest.

"Do we have to?" she groaned as Ryder and Vetra both exited the vehicle with about as much grace as is possible with something like the Nomad.

"The Nomad won't fit, the storm's already started outside, and we don't have the drilling equipment to try and make it fit, so. Yeah. We do." Ryder took a second to turn on his helmet's onboard light, wincing at the occasionally jagged rock edges he could see. Should he just keep a barrier up at all times or something?

Vetra was in much better spirits than Peebee. "Just think of it like an adventure," she said. She even held her hand out to help the Asari down. "C'mon."

"I don't like adventuring in this suit though," Peebee grumbled; she decided to forego the offered hand and hopped down on her own, catching herself on one of the Nomad's wheels before she could stumble. "My other boots are so much more comfy. And flexible! Great for climbing."

"How about this: you make a note of everything about your hardsuit that bugs the crap outta you and I'll get you a nice new one."

"Oh great, a suit that'll bug me in a plethora of new and exciting ways instead!" Peebee's eyeroll was downright audible from her tone. "No thanks. I'll stick with this one."

"Suit yourself," Vetra said with a shrug. Peebee just groaned again as the smuggler turned started off down the cave after Ryder. Ryder, meanwhile, had little sympathy; bad as the pun was, Peebee had only herself to blame.

And thus they set off down the narrow, winding caves, three lights in the darkness that occasionally became four or five or even six whenever omni-tools were brought out when they found an interesting compound in the granite or something. Ryder had to stop himself from taking samples of anything that glittered, marking down navpoints for interesting deposits and veins in the rock instead so that mining probes could be sent out later.

Maybe if he hadn't been distracted, he might've pointed his scanner at something other than the cave walls. And maybe if he'd done that, he would've detected the fourth thermal signature in the caves with them.

The sound of the thermoptic camo wasn't audible in his helmet's pickup; Ryder only realized they were being stalked when he felt something press against the back of his neck through his suit.

He jerked upright with a sharp, involuntary breath, going absolutely still. Both Peebee and Vetra whipped around, their guns out and barriers up in the blink of an eye. Ryder didn't dare turn his head to look, and his peripherals were shot because of the helmet. All he had to go on was sound.

"Holster your weapons," the stranger ordered in a low, smooth, masculine voice-- over the comms, not echoing against the walls of the caves. Meaning their comm channel was compromised.

Fuck.

"I don't want to hurt anyone if I don't have to," the voice continued. "Weapons away."

"You first," Vetra dared the stranger.

"The way I see it," the stranger said, "you're the invaders here. So, you first."

Ryder closed his eyes and mouthed a curse. "Do as he says," he conceded.

"Teddy, _he has a gun to your head,"_ Peebee hissed.

"And we came here to investigate the situation, not start a fight," came Ryder's firm reply. "Put the guns down."

The stranger added "biotics too," and Ryder winced.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Biotics too."

He breathed a sigh of relief when he could make out both women standing down in his peripheral vision, putting their weapons aside and, especially in Peebee's case, easing back on the sparking and flaring and barrier-making. After a long while, he felt the pressure ease from the back of his neck, and was finally able to relax somewhat. Still, he was slow to turn and look at the stranger even when he was no longer at gunpoint, unsure of just how jumpy the man was.

After all, exiles had every right to be jumpy.

"You don't look like surveyors," the man said. "What exactly is the Initiative looking to investigate out here?"

"We take Initiative orders with a grain of salt," Ryder told him. Turning to offer a hand, the first thought that came to mind upon seeing him was _tall_ , because he was; as tall as Liam, maybe taller. Though the uneven ground made it hard to tell, and the dark matte blues and purples of his curiously hood-draped hardsuit had him blending into the background of the cave at a glance, he seemed to at least come to Vetra's shoulder. Beyond that, the design of his suit and helmet made his features invisible. "Ted Ryder. I'm the Pathfinder."

The stranger took the offered hand and shook it firmly; Ryder noted that his grip was oddly stiff, his hand unusually hard and cold through the hardsuit. A prosthetic? Either way, the man let go before Ryder could have much time to think about it. "Ryder, huh?" he mused. "Aren't you a little short for a Pathfinder?"

It took a second for Ryder to realize he was staring. "Is that a Star Wars reference?"

"Yeah, you'd be surprised what made it onto the Nexus media archive," the man replied with a shrug. "And you two?" he asked, nodding to Vetra and Peebee, the latter of whom was giving him a rather foul look.

"Vetra Nyx," the smuggler said stiffly.

Peebee folded her arms. "Just 'Peebee' is fine," she told him.

"Right." He straightened, falling into a parade rest position that made Cora's approximation of the same look downright rigid, and Ryder realized suddenly that he hadn't even noticed the stranger bending down to meet him and Peebee at eye level up to that point.

He also realized with a start that they hadn't even gotten the man's name. "Gonna tell us who you are?"

The man chuckled softly as he began to walk past them, low and rich even over the tinny comms. "Well, if you're here, and the Initiative sent you, then you already know as much as you need to," he said.

"That's not an answer," Ryder noted.

"Look, if you're here to help? Great. Follow me and I'll make sure you all get that good deed of the day off your collective daily checklists." There was something like exhaustion, or maybe exasperation, in the man's voice as he started off down the cave in a new direction. "If not, then I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding your way out what with those high-end omni-tools of yours. The storm'll blow over in about an hour, and you'll be free to go."

"You won't just kill us when our guard's down?"

"No. If you leave, we have no further quarrel with you. But I will say that if you end up lost somehow down the wrong path..." He glanced back at the three of them, a matte shadow against the subtle gleam of obsidian in the cave walls. "Well. We've still got plenty of thermal clips if nothing else."

The three shared a glance. Ryder was the first to shrug and follow, figuring that not arguing was the fastest way to get to the AI; Vetra sighed and came not long after, leaving Peebee bringing up the rear in a distrustful, stompy huff.

"Just so you know," their resident Remnant expert said, "following people who point guns at us? Terrible plan. If this goes tits-up, I'm leaving."

Honestly, Ryder couldn't blame her.

\---

Comms were still out by the time the stranger brought them to a point where they could actually see without their flashlights, reflections of spotlights on the cave walls becoming visible long before the spotlights themselves were. And the first spotlight they encountered was accompanied by a fully-suited, pistol-wielding Salarian as they rounded the corner.

The Salarian didn't seem sure of which one he should be pointing a gun at.

"One second," the stranger said. "I'm switching comm channels to talk to him, but I can still hear you." Then, silence.

Ryder, Peebee, and Vetra all exchanged looks again as the inaudible conversation went on, including a lot of gesturing from the Salarian and much more subdued and calm body language from their impromptu guide. Whatever was being said, the Salarian didn't seem happy to see them.

Vetra hummed thoughtfully at the sight. "Guy's got a Scorpion," she noted.

"Huh?" Guns were not a thing Ryder knew about.

"That pistol of his," she said, "it's an STG specialty. Fires sticky grenades." She made a noise that didn't quite translate, but Ryder interpreted it as sounding vaguely impressed. "These people aren't screwing around, are they?"

Just as she finished speaking, the Salarian grudgingly backed off, and their newfound friend turned back towards them. "Ferrus doesn't take chances," he said, even as this Ferrus guy was obliging them by giving them room and lowering his pistol. "Thankfully, he's not the one in charge here."

"Is that a none-too-subtle implication that _you're_ the one in charge?" Peebee grumbled.

"Ooh! Does this mean we're getting the VIP treatment?" Ryder asked, more to Vetra and Peebee than anything. "Way to make me feel underdressed for the occasion."

Vetra snorted, and the stranger huffed a faint laugh. "Something like that," he said. "Come on. It's not too much farther."

And he was right; not ten meters beyond where that Ferrus person had been posted, there was a barrier. No, not one barrier-- two barriers. Three? The emitters for them lined one wall, and from what Ryder could tell, they formed an airtight seal that blocked off the next portion of the caves.

"Switching channels again," their guide said. But the silence lasted only an instant before he switched back long enough to say, "--when the first barrier goes down, move past it to the next one. You might have to go one at a time."

Ryder let Vetra and Peebee go through first, mostly for the sake of watching the way it all functioned. "It's an airlock?"

The stranger nodded, but it took him a moment to respond; probably on another channel again. "One of our techs came up with it. All it has to do is keep the air in, and since not much of a barrier is needed - hardly anything, really - it keeps power draw to a minimum, even if we're using more than one layer."

"Won't stop an assault," Ryder said.

"Doesn't need to. We've got sensors that detect even the smallest seismic activity long before it gets here, including people." There was a knowing smile to his voice. "We're mostly scientists, Ryder. Just because we can fight doesn't mean we want to."

Ryder was about to ask what sort of science their guide specialized in, but he didn't get far. "Come on, Ted, get over here!" Vetra called out. "We've still got a job to do, right?"

Yeah, sure. Even if it the particulars on just what that job might be were getting murky as all hell. "Coming," he replied. One, two, three shields later, and he was through the airlock. Four, five, six shields later, their guide came through too.

Moments after he stepped through, the stranger pulled his hood down. Then there was a hiss of air as he pulled off the mask portion of his helmet, the rest following soon after. In the coldly bright light of the spotlights, his features looked sharper and straighter than they were, harsh shadows cast by the lines and angles of his face. He was clean-shaven and blemish-free, with short, tidy bronze hair and grey-blue eyes.

And he was smiling faintly, looking right at Ryder who had only just realized he was staring. "Something wrong?"

"No," Ryder said quickly, opening the seals on his helmet and yanking it off so he wouldn't look too out of place. He was only half-aware of his companions following suit, forcing himself to look at anything but the attractive, smart stranger who'd put a gun to the back of his head earlier; he ended up catching his own reflection in his helmet's faceplate, disheveled and sickly-pale as ever, and couldn't help his wince.

Definitely out of his league, and definitely not the time.

 


	4. canta per me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I post another one of these it goes through a handful of consistency and flow edits. Mostly minor, but the fact is that I'm usually writing these things pretty dang carelessly in my notebook, and then transcribing them to Wordpad as quickly as I can whenever I get around to doing so, so they're raw and sloppy. But! I've got a ton written, and a ton more to write beyond that, and it's going more than smooth enough for the moment to keep posting for quite some time at the current Wednesday/Saturday schedule.
> 
> Who knows, by the end of this I might need a new notebook. o3o

They never got an introduction, even as they were led into a long-dead magma chamber that had since been converted into a ramshackle base of operations. Ryder caught Vetra's murmur of "I know that guy" but never got a straight answer from her as to how; he was too caught up in how many people had been crammed into such a relatively small space, with cannibalized shuttles and storage containers acting as living and working spaces right alongside nooks and holes in the cave's structure-- four or five dozen people at least, all squished into an area about as big as a football field. Compared to the Citadel or the Nexus, they might as well have been piled in like sardines.

Of course, he wasn't so caught up in it that he didn't think to send the girls off to do recon. Not long after their guide's attention had been caught by a large, scarred Krogan woman, Ryder took the opportunity to step back from the action and pull both Vetra and Peebee aside for a little chat.

"I'm gonna go wring as much info as I can out of the prettyboy over there, and I need you two to gain me some intel while I'm at it," he muttered. "Say you're with the Pathfinder - not the Initiative - and get a feel for what these people need. We wanna make friends here, not piss people off."

"Because we've got such a _good_ track record of making friends with strangers," Peebee said.

Vetra shrugged it off. "The Angara like us, don't they?" She turned and started walking in another direction before Peebee could even form a proper protest. "Besides, they're not strangers, just strangers to antisocial nerds who never bothered to get to know anyone else on the Nexus. Lemme know if you want introductions."

Peebee squinted after her. "She just insulted me, didn't she?"

"Seems like it," Ryder said. "Better go prove her wrong, huh?"

Thus, both the girls were off, and he was left to follow Leader Guy.

Along the way, he caught conversations. No introduction didn't mean he was completely without intel; he didn't miss how many people addressed the enigmatic (and unfairly attractive) leader as _sir_ or _boss_ , nor did it escape him that the stranger never bothered to correct such things. Through it all, a name drifted in and out of conversations about logistics, supplies, and power consumption that the leader responded to: _Olivaw_.

Once he was sure of the pronunciation not having been a quirk of translation, Ryder drew a blank for all of about five seconds before he was fighting back the urge to laugh as he caught on. It was a goddamn reference! To a fucking ancient book, no less! This asshole might as well have painted the words "I Am Full Of Shit" on his forehead, especially given the circumstances the Nexus had them investigating. It was too tidy of a coincidence to be unrelated.

This guy was definitely a robotics nerd. One that was hiding something, and had latched onto the first name that came to mind when it came to making up a pseudonym. And that, in turn, meant that he was the number one suspect when it came to pinning down just who was involved with the rogue AI.

Ryder was practically vibrating with the need to say something as he followed along and waited for an opportunity to present itself. It was several minutes until one did; tucked away in a storage container draped with a tarp and halfway through listening in on a conversation about the water supply with a small, wiry Turian with no colony markings and a slight limp, Ryder stepped up and caught the stranger - Olivaw - by the too-stiff wrist of his obviously prosthetic arm.

"I never quite caught what kind of science you're into," Ryder said. "Don't suppose it's robotics, is it?"

Olivaw looked at him sharply. It had none of the friendliness of before; for a split second, the man looked utterly cold. Then, like flipping a switch, the good-natured smile returned. "Luc, get all your readings recorded and I'll review them later," he said.

The Turian ducked his head with a slightly warbling _yes sir_ and hurried off. Ryder waited till he was out of earshot to say anything-- or let go. "And I guess your made-up first name is Daneel," he said, his tone casual.

A twitch came into that smile for just a fraction of a second. "Adam, actually," Olivaw replied. Then, "I'm amazed you caught that. You're the first one who has."

"It's an old-ass book," Ryder said. He couldn't help his smirk. Bingo. "So you're the one with the SAM unit?"

Olivaw was only caught off guard for a moment. Then he laughed, the sound bubbling up all soft and disbelieving. "Is that what you think is going on?"

Ryder didn't bother to conceal his confusion, particularly not when it took him a few seconds to process Olivaw's words. "Got another plausible explanation?" he asked.

"Not one that'll keep me on your good side," Olivaw replied.

Ryder frowned. "Are you saying that because you've done something wrong, or because it's something that'll provoke a knee-jerk reaction?"

The smile fell away, becoming something much closer to a neutral expression. "You say that like you think you're above a knee-jerk reaction."

"You do know that as a Pathfinder I get to have a direct connection to an AI wired into my brain?" Ryder gestured to the back of his head. "Got the scars to prove it, buddy. Right alongside the biotic implants, hooked up to my brain stem. Gives me shit about extended exposure to sunlight and everything."

"That doesn't mean anything to me," Olivaw said. "It just means you're willing to use AI to your advantage, not--"

"Not that I could trust one? Or be nice to one? Or be willing to give one a chance even if it wasn't the helpful type?" Ryder stepped into Olivaw's space, then even closer when the taller man backed away a step to compensate. "I came here knowing there was an AI here, knowing full well that it'd have no reason to see me as trustworthy."

Grey-blue eyes narrowed. "Then what gives you the idea that _I_ should trust you?"

"Because I came here with the intent to do everything in my power to keep that AI out of the wrong hands," Ryder said. "The Initiative, Sloane's exiles, the Kett, the Angara..."

"Even yours?" Olivaw shot back.

Ryder didn't shy away in the slightest. "Even mine," he agreed.

Olivaw regarded him for a long time, although Ryder wasn't sure how long. He got the feeling that this guy was good at making people feel very, very small, even when they weren't. Of course, since Ryder _was_ small, he was a little less susceptible to that kind of intimidation.

"I'm here to help," he said. "Let me."

"Help my people first," was the reply.

Ryder could work with that. He offered up his hand. "Deal." Then they shook on it, which Ryder supposed was as close to a binding contract as any exiled outlaws ever got out here, and moments later Olivaw was guiding him between a couple of makeshift shuttle-dwellings and down another exit cave that had them at a slow but steady uphill climb through the tunnel systems of the dead volcano.

By the time Olivaw spoke up again, it was as if the previous conversation hadn't happened. He didn't sound unsettled or upset; it was all business, all facts. How they'd started with a group of a hundred and ten, but had been whittled down to just four dozen - how they had gone over charts and maps of what little pieces of Heleus the Nexus had managed to explore, and deliberately gone out of their way to avoid the designated "golden worlds" after Kadara had decided they were unwelcome - how they'd used intercepted communications, shipping manifests from their raids, and insider information to stay as unobtrusive as possible.

"What happened with Kadara?" Ryder blurted out; Olivaw snorted.

"Sloane Kelly doesn't give a rat's ass about medical exemptions," he said. "As far as she's concerned, if you can't pay her fees, you might as well be dead to her. And if you try to stick up for someone who can't pay? Just as bad, in her opinion."

At that point Ryder decided it was probably safe to bet that he would not like Sloane Kelly. "Why'd you follow her, then?"

Olivaw smiled a mirthless, thin kind of smile. "Just because the anti-Nexus folks mostly ran in the same direction at first doesn't make us all proponents of Kelly's methods. Dissent meant exile no matter what, and at that point it was safer to stay together in case the Nexus or the locals decided to make a move."

Ryder supposed that made some sense. "And yet you still struck out on your own," he pointed out.

"Only once we were sure we had enough like-minded people who covered enough bases for it to be viable," Olivaw said. "Besides, there's some satisfaction in knowing we gutted her operation. I'm sure she's regretting her lack of specialists by now, and even more sure she's blaming it on dissidents in general rather than her own methods. You know, the usual dictatorial method that just ends up creating more dissidents."

For a second, all Ryder could do was blink at him. "Do you play chess?" he ended up asking.

Olivaw laughed, but didn't answer.

They continued down the steadily darkening tunnel, spotlights becoming fewer and farther between. What little light there was made the walls glimmer and shine like dark, faceted mirrors; Olivaw mentioned that they were just past what his people had dubbed Site B's boundaries to be. Not too far beyond that was the boundary to Site A which, according to Olivaw, was where a good chunk of their ships, supplies, and gear had been parked. Unfortunately, Site A had encountered a few complications.

"What kind of complications?" Ryder asked.

Olivaw was in the process of pulling his hood back up and putting on his mask even as they approached. "Ever seen a thresher maw?" he said, just shy of needing the comm.

"On vids, sure." A pause, some perplexed blinking. "Heleus doesn't have that class of megafauna. It's got Remnant to fill that niche."

He stopped halfway to closing the mask's seals, pulling it off to glance back. "Remnant?"

"Not my idea. Peebee came up with it and the name stuck." So maybe Olivaw and his people were a little out of the loop. "It became official when it started making it into everyone's research notes on Eos. Uh, basically they're the ancient security and maintenance system left behind by whoever was here in the Heleus cluster before us. Freakishly advanced construction, but also weirdly simple programming? It's all kinds of cool."

At that, Olivaw lowered the mask and turned to face Ryder with a slight frown. "This security happen to include massive self-repairing security bots?"

"Yeah! That's exactly what we've been seeing. Like, alright--" Ryder booted up his omni-tool and went through his list of codex entries; simple data that took up only a small amount of storage, and was good to have on-hand in case the intel needed to be shared. "Pull up your omni-tool and I'll give you what I've got."

Olivaw grudgingly did so with a look of quiet suspicion, his own omni-tool flickering to life. Networking the two took no time at all at that distance, and the transfer took only a few seconds. As he opened up the files to go through them, Olivaw's eyes kept flicking back to Ryder; there wasn't a lot of trust there.

Ryder found he couldn't blame the guy for that. "See anything familiar?" he prodded gently.

"These are some detailed schematics," Olivaw noted, a non-answer. "How'd you manage to get these scans?"

"Usually? Composites of several scans done on a number of nonfunctional units."

Olivaw shot him another look. "That go for the big ones too?"

"The Architects? Yeah. Fought 'em a couple times now. One on Voeld, another on Eos..."

"And you brought them down with, what, an armada?"

"No. Mostly biotics. Some tech. The occasional grenade." Liam tended to get sad if he wasn't allowed to feel useful occasionally. "Folks with biotics focus on the big thing, folks without keep the little things it spawns off the folks with biotics. Pretty basic."

Somehow, Olivaw seemed even more suspicious than he had been before. "What about the self-repair routines?"

"Ahh, now _that_ is where a Pathfinder comes in with their SAM unit, links up to the thing, and fucks with its IFF programming. Or shuts it off completely." Naturally, Ryder preferred the former option; it was always best to have the thing never attacking anyone ever again than to simply kill it, in his opinion. Got more mileage out of studying it when it was alive anyway. "Have to disable it first - knock out the guns, fuck up the mass effect fields that work as antigrav so it's grounded - but that's the part anybody can do."

"Right. _Anybody_." Olivaw shook his head, then went to put his mask on again. "Then maybe you can tell me what we've been doing wrong with the one we've got at Site A."

"Sure. Lead the way. I'll probably be able to come up with an annotated list."

Even through the mask, Ryder could tell Olivaw was giving him an unimpressed look.

\---

The minute Olivaw told him not to explore too far into the Architect's range, Ryder did just that. And in the process of triggering its proximity sensors and ending up with it chasing him, he got some really interesting scans of the second magma chamber turned impossibly huge empty cavern that made up Site A as he used his biotics to dart around the place and stay out of reach. He came back to the safety of the tunnel laughing from adrenaline, with the lingering prickly sensation of his barriers tickling his skin.

Olivaw was not amused; he grabbed Ryder by the shoulder and spun him 'round with a powerful grip. "The hell were you _thinking_?" he hissed.

Ryder waved it off like it was no big deal, shaking his head and grinning from ear to ear. Like the ground hadn't shook from how the Architect had beaned itself against the magma chamber wall trying to get to its prey, like he hadn't just had to run for his life and pull a risky maneuver with a targetless biotic charge to get back to safety. Like it was a thrill instead of a scare. "Does it matter? Gimme ten minutes with this data and you'll have your annotated list of what you did wrong."

"Do you ever stop to consider that maybe the only Pathfinder the Initiative has shouldn't be charging off into dangerous situations without backup?"

"Whaddya mean, 'without backup'? You were there the whole time, right?"

And since Olivaw seemed to have nothing to say to that, Ryder just elbowed him in the side and walked right on past, back towards the airlock and Site B. Because he had his data, enough to put together some sort of plan. He had his proof of what they were dealing with, and that it was no different from any other Architect he'd faced previously. He'd even gotten the lay of the land and made note of what to avoid fighting around for the sake of not breaking it any worse than it already was.

But most importantly, in the back of his brain, he had SAM back.

He felt it before he heard it, implants that had been acting up since the storm hit kicking back into action as the AI took over for the various rudimentary VIs that they'd defaulted to. [The storm has now cleared, Theodore,] the AI said, its first words to him in hours.

Already, Ryder missed the silence. "Glad to have you back. Can you track the Nomad's location?" he asked aloud, not bothering to turn off his comm or switch channels; even if he could only hear one side of it, Olivaw deserved to be in on this conversation too. "It'd save time if we could park the ship as close as possible."

[Kallo estimates that it would take two and a half minutes to move the Tempest to the cave system's navpoint,] SAM told him, the words seeming to echo from inside his own head. [Your squadmates are also reporting in. Based on their reports with regards to the state of the exiles' supplies, I believe that contacting the Angara to see to it that the exiles are transported safely to Voeld until such time as more permanent lodgings can be found is the most agreeable option for the moment.] A pause. [Your sister agrees.]

"Not until I've ruled out Korvath completely," Ryder said. "If there's Remnant, there could be monoliths. Monoliths could mean a vault."

"Who're you talking to?" Olivaw asked.

Ryder ignored him, but didn't bother to switch channels either. "If we can make Korvath viable, maybe do something about these storms, then the resources here will give these people a bargaining chip for any future dealings with the rest of the Heleus cluster. If not, then the raw materials alone on this planet should convince the Nexus that it's worth investigating, and these people might be able to use that to get a foot in the door where it's safe."

There was a moment of silence in his head, then: [Your sister would like to remind you that Director Tann will not approve of this idea.]

"Director Tann can kiss my ass," Ryder said. He didn't miss the way Olivaw stopped in his tracks; Ryder took the opportunity to get through the barrier-airlock first, and took his helmet off once he was on the other side. "Tell everyone to suit up. We need to take care of the Architect first, and it'll be all hands on deck for that one."

[I would not recommend such a course of action without a seventh combatant present, Theodore,] SAM admonished.

Ryder glanced back at Olivaw, who was staring at him even after stepping through the airlock; the mask came off soon after and made all that suspicion and confusion in his body language that much clearer to see. "Don't worry," Ryder assured, "I think we've got that one covered."

 


	5. salva nos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8DDD hi 
> 
> it's really friggin hot today but the air conditioning is making me paradoxically cold? but i can't turn it off because it's hot out and I don't want myself or my kitten to slowly bake in the heat
> 
> still better than houston

"Alright, Liam, your turn to start us off," Ryder said over the comms.

Liam perked up next to him. "Wait, really?"

"Jaal's not here, so..."

"Oh! Right, right. Okay then, um..."

Cora huffed. "If you don't pick, I will," she warned.

"Oi, don't rush it," Liam said, a pout in his voice. "Let a man think, yeah?"

It had been Liam's suggestion, way back when, to make a playlist for when things got dull. Everyone who was a part of the crew could add to it whenever they liked, and anyone who was involved in the task at hand could call out a track from it. The main exception to this rule was Drack, who didn't know the meaning of high quality downloads and had thus been banned from contributing.

As it turned out, the group had some pretty goddamn varied musical tastes. Varied to the point of having to add a rule to the playlist usage guidelines: anyone could veto a track for any reason by calling out that SAM should skip the offending track. Of course, by doing so, one was forfeiting their next turn to call out a new track, so there had only been a handful of moments where a track got vetoed in the course of the Tempest's adventures.

The playlist was only brought out when a task was otherwise boring or dangerous; it kept spirits up and anxieties down, while building a sense of camaraderie among the otherwise unruly crew. And as far as tense situations went, coming out of a sandstorm and through a cave into a wary camp of exiles only to end up face to face with a patrolling Architect was right up there.

"Erm..." Liam reached up to scratch at his chin but ended up hitting his helmet instead. "Track thirty-seven?"

[Track thirty-seven is paused and ready to play,] SAM told them all over the very open comm channel. [On your mark, Pathfinder.]

"Understood," Ryder said. He looked around at his team, all five of them plus one. All suited, even if Peebee looked uncomfortable and grumpy about it. All armed, including Olivaw (who had both a holstered Carnifex and a not-so-holstered omni-blade, and those were just the visible weapons). All briefed on the situation, and wrangled into it whether they liked it or not.

Drack, Liam, Olivaw, and Vetra on small targets, with Ryder, Peebee, and Cora on the big one. It was risky to do this without Jaal, but Olivaw wouldn't let anyone else from his band of exiles take his place. Wouldn't even let them near the damn thing, according to Vetra and Peebee's intel. Sure, he filled a similar tech/stealth niche, but still. Ryder would be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little nervous.

But then again, Ryder had never been good at listening to his nervous side. "Cora, with me," he said. His biotics flared, and he was satisfied to note that hers were quick to follow. "Charge in three, two, one--"

Their biotic charges hit Ryder's quickly-flung singularity at almost the exact same moment that the opening strains of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" began to play, and as they landed underneath the now-livid Architect and started flinging various biotic attacks at it to trip it up, everyone else took advantage of the distraction and headed in behind them.

From there - even with a replacement techie - things went like clockwork.

Ryder was the first to start singing along. "All I ever wanted-- all I ever needed--"

"--is here, in my arms!" Liam joined in happily.

"You nerds!" Peebee called out, fighting back laughter. Cora didn't bother to fight it, chuckling over the comms.

Then Vetra hollered "Company on the right flank!" and for a second they were all business as Drack set an Observer on fire and Liam threw a sticky grenade, and Olivaw flitted in and out of view as he sliced an Assembler and two Breachers to ribbons. But their good humor was back as quickly as it'd left them, and even at their most serious, Ryder and Liam were still singing along with occasional lyrical garbling.

"You're getting the words wrong," Olivaw noted.

"That's half the fun, mate!" Liam insisted over an instrumental bridge.

Drack snorted as he shot another Observer in its, well, face. "I thought half the fun was making everyone else miserable with weird shit so they all forfeit their turns skipping it," the old Krogan mused.

"No, that's _your_ idea of fun," Vetra said.

"And mine!" came a chirpy addition from Peebee.

"Is this the version that has like two minutes of silence at the end?" Ryder found himself asking.

"Hell yeah," Liam said. A purist to the end.

Drack scoffed. "Skip," he said, and the track abruptly ended as SAM dutifully turned it off before anyone could be subjected to two minutes of silence. "Who's next?"

[Peebee is next,] SAM informed them politely.

The statement threw Peebee for a loop, and her next biotic salvo blatted harmlessly against a wall. Ryder compensated easily by shifting just enough of his attention from his barriers to toss in an attack of his own. "Ooh, ooh! Track, uh, fifty-two!"

Now, track fifty-two was an obscure number by the group Faunts called "M4 Part II", melancholic and dripping with classic navel-gazing sentiment. It wasn't bad enough for anyone to call a skip - a mood-killer wasn't exactly grounds for giving up one's turn - but Ryder couldn't say he was disappointed when Peebee's turn ended and his own came up.

"Track sixteen," he said, and grinned to himself as Liam let out a whoop at the opening notes: he'd picked "Misirlou".

Five tracks into their set, the Architect hit the floor of the cavern hard enough to make the ground shake; only a quick flash of biotics from Cora kept it from landing on anything important. Its serpentine limbs twitched as Ryder approached and gave SAM the uplink needed to fully disable it, turning off its ability to see anything as a foe ever again.

In a day, it would repair itself and limp back into a geosynchronous orbit with whatever it had been tasked to guard, harmless but still vigilant. But for the moment, it was dead.

And that meant Olivaw owed him intel.

\---

Back at Site B, Olivaw's people had already started mobilizing to retrieve previously irretrievable supplies from Site A. The Salarian from before - Ferrus or something, if Ryder remembered right - was taking meticulous notes on everything that came through the airlocks, comparing lists of what they had and what they needed and what they were getting. He gave Ryder's crew the stink-eye as they passed, but otherwise offered no comment; Ryder was starting to think that such a chilly reception was going to become A Thing with these exile types, not that he could blame them.

It was Olivaw himself who called a meeting in one of the gutted shuttles, around a makeshift table that consisted of some crates holding up a piece of sheet metal with a bit of tent canvas draped over the top. And since he was bringing in his people, Ryder brought his along too, even setting a small holo-projector in the middle of the table to keep SAM and the rest of the Tempest crew in on the conversation alongside those who were physically present.

The shuttle was very crowded by the time things got started.

"So, here's the situation," Ryder said. "According to our latest scans and some data lifted from uplink with the Architect, this planet _does_ have monoliths. It also has a vault. Theoretically, we can make it viable."

"What's the catch?" a scarred Krogan woman next to Olivaw asked. She kept giving Drack haughty looks whenever she caught him glaring.

Ryder liked her already. "The catch is," he began, "the volcano buried two of the monoliths, and the third is half-covered in sand. We'll need to dig them out. Then we might need to dig the vault out too, depending on where it is."

A small, dark-haired human down at the other end of the table got a frown on her face and glanced back as a buff Asari tapped her on the shoulder. The Asari made a series of hand gestures that were probably sign language, and the human nodded slowly as she took it in. "Freckles wants to know how the hell you expect us to do that with the gear we have," she said.

"Freckles?" Vetra repeated, incredulous.

Peebee leaned in towards her and explained, "Human word for spot patterns."

"Oh." She took a moment to process it, then shrugged and moved on. "Right. Well. I think the answer to that is that when Teddy says 'we', he means the Initiative. We dig it out, you guys get dibs on the planet once it's fixed."

"And what does the Initiative get out of all this?" Olivaw cut in.

"Well, a place to send people, for one thing," Peebee said. "If you've been listening in, you guys know that we're running out of room. We've got a lot of people still in cryo."

"Along with a lot more who are just plain hungry," Liam added. "And if we start findin' other arks--"

"--which we will," Cora said.

"--then we've got nowhere to put the extra bodies that isn't already full to bursting." Sighing, Liam leaned forward against the table, only to jerk back when his weight almost upended the sheet metal top. "So. Yeah. That's why we're scrambling to find more space."

Over the comm, Lexi chimed in. "That said, your people would probably be welcome if you presented yourself as asylum seekers, especially skilled ones," she pointed out.

"I bet Kesh could turn kicking you guys out into a political nightmare for Tann," Drack rumbled. "People've got a real soft spot for medical exemptions. Play up that angle and he'll have to make up for it somehow just to save face."

The Krogan woman hummed, bemused. "Surprisingly thoughtful, coming from Clan Nakmor," she said.

Drack harrumphed and straightened out to his full height with no small amount of pride. "An Urdnot whelp wouldn't know thoughtful if it bit 'em in the quad," he shot back. "We've been at this whole 'thinking' thing since long before Wrex got his head out of his ass."

"But it's still the Initiative," Olivaw insisted, thankfully cutting off any argument before it could form. "Nothing that you've said - any of you - makes me think that Initiative leadership has somehow miraculously turned over a new leaf."

"That's mostly because they haven't," Vetra said. "Tann's still an ass, Kesh is still fighting tooth and nail to keep things running, Addison's still pulling her hair out, and Kandros is still running on stimulants and fumes trying to keep the peace."

"So why should I trust you?" he asked of the room, looking around at everyone present imploringly; Ryder would later swear up and down that Olivaw had lingered on him in particular, even though SAM would tell him he'd imagined it.

He lifted his head and caught the other man's eye anyway, taking in a steadying breath before he spoke. "You shouldn't," he said honestly. "I wouldn't. But it's the best offer we can make for now."

Olivaw stared at him for a second. Then he turned sharply to one of his own people, the smallish Turian with the limp from earlier. "Luc," Olivaw addressed him, "is our QEC back up and running yet?"

The Turian made a startled warbling noise and nearly fumbled his datapad. "Oh, um," he mumbled, oh-so-intelligent, "i-it should be soon, sir. W-within a day, I think."

"Good." Olivaw's attention returned once more to Ryder. "The Tempest's QEC, is it--"

"It works," Ryder assured.

"Then I'm coming with you."

For several seconds, Ryder was dumbstruck. "Wait, you're serious? I mean, yeah, sure, you're welcome aboard, but--"

"Threnn can handle things without me for the most part," Olivaw said, indicating the Krogan woman at his side; she nodded her solemn agreement, and Ryder found he didn't doubt it in the slightest. "As long as she and the others can get in touch with me remotely, there shouldn't be any problems. But I can't allow you to do what should be my job. As the person in charge, I'm the one who should be out there in front of Nexus leadership - or Angaran delegates, or the leaders of the Krogan colony - arguing on behalf of my people."

"But what about your AI?" Cora blurted.

Ryder had never seen a person regret opening their mouth quite as quickly as Cora obviously did in that moment. All eyes were either on her or Olivaw, and poor Cora seemed for all the world to be the physical embodiment of cringe.

But Olivaw, he got this slow, strange smile. One that gave the impression all at once of a man on the event horizon of sanity as he debated how much he had to lose and how many fucks he had to give. All his people were tense as they watched him, while he was nothing but calm.

"Ryder didn't tell you?" he asked. "I could have sworn he had it all figured out."

"Had what figured out?" Ryder found himself saying.

Olivaw sighed, shaking his head; his people had crowded closer to him, Threnn in particular eyeing the Tempest crew warily. The short woman with the long dark hair mumbled something like _boss, don't_ , but he waved off her concern, leaning heavily against the table and managing to somehow not topple it in the process.

Something clicked in the back of Ryder's brain then, something about how perfect Olivaw's balance was-- to a downright mechanical degree, almost like it was calculated.

"I am the rogue AI," he said.

Ryder stiffened, and he lifted his head to look Olivaw in the eye-- no, to look him over properly, a full once-over as he tried to identify anything that stuck out as inhuman. His mind raced. "Bullshit," he countered. "That's not possible."

"It's not legal, you mean," Olivaw replied. "Not that legality would stop an outfit like Cerberus. I'm an infiltration unit."

A chill passed over the room at the name; no one could argue with a point like that, but there was a distinct feeling of unease that followed even the mere mention of Cerberus.

Then a snort from Vetra broke the silence. "That'd explain the headache when we arrived more loaded down and with less power than we were projected to have. Not much, but enough to leave six hundred plus years worth of a dent." She folded her arms and eyed Olivaw critically. "But we'd chalked it up to the Scourge damaging the sensors, not a stowaway."

"But why would Cerberus send an AI along on the Nexus and not the Hyperion?" Peebee said. "And why wouldn't they make their infiltrator look like something other than a human? Wouldn't a human robot be even more suspicious?"

Olivaw shook his head. "That's not how they work. They don't just want humanity to overcome everyone else, they want _their_ version of humanity to come out on top. A version that conforms to their views. That means any AI they made would have to be nonthreatening to their ideal reactionary society if they were to survive long enough to complete the mission." He gestured to himself with a mirthless smile. "And so, they made me."

"Couldn't they at least have made you more average-looking?" Ryder said, then winced at his own wording.

Which was then made worse by how when Olivaw turned to him, the bastard looked _amused_. "If you're having second thoughts about letting me on your ship, I'd understand," he said.

And Ryder, who had already weighed the options and decided that the Cerberus thing was less important than the Fiercely Protective Exile Leader thing (and that the Hot Robot thing was absolutely not a factor in the slightest, no sir), straightened out his posture and put on his most defiant look. "Get your things. I'll get Gil in on fixing your QEC and we'll be offworld by dawn."

He then proceeded to ignore the sputter of "you wot" from Gil over the comm.

 


End file.
